Transcriber’s Note

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

LOVE POEMS AND OTHERS

LOVE·POEMS
AND · OTHERS
BY·D. H. LAWRENCE
AUTHOR OF “THE WHITE PEACOCK” “THE TRESPASSER”

DUCKWORTH · AND · CO.
COVENT · GARDEN · LONDON
MCMXIII

Several of these Poems have appeared in the “English Review,” the “Nation,” and the “Westminster Gazette.”

CONTENTS

WEDDING MORN [p. i]

The morning breaks like a pomegranate

In a shining crack of red,

Ah, when to-morrow the dawn comes late

Whitening across the bed,

It will find me watching at the marriage gate

And waiting while light is shed

On him who is sleeping satiate,

With a sunk, abandoned head.

And when the dawn comes creeping in,

Cautiously I shall raise

Myself to watch the morning win

My first of days,

As it shows him sleeping a sleep he got

Of me, as under my gaze,

He grows distinct, and I see his hot

Face freed of the wavering blaze.

Then I shall know which image of God

My man is made toward,

And I shall know my bitter rod

Or my rich reward.

And I shall know the stamp and worth

Of the coin I’ve accepted as mine,

Shall see an image of heaven or of earth

On his minted metal shine.

Yea and I long to see him sleep

In my power utterly,

I long to know what I have to keep, [p. ii]

I long to see

My love, that spinning coin, laid still

And plain at the side of me,

For me to count—for I know he will

Greatly enrichen me.

And then he will be mine, he will lie

In my power utterly,

Opening his value plain to my eye

He will sleep of me.

He will lie negligent, resign

His all to me, and I

Shall watch the dawn light up for me

This sleeping wealth of mine.

And I shall watch the wan light shine

On his sleep that is filled of me,

On his brow where the wisps of fond hair twine

So truthfully,

On his lips where the light breaths come and go

Naïve and winsomely,

On his limbs that I shall weep to know

Lie under my mastery.

KISSES IN THE TRAIN [p. iii]

I saw the midlands

Revolve through her hair;

The fields of autumn

Stretching bare,

And sheep on the pasture

Tossed back in a scare.

And still as ever

The world went round,

My mouth on her pulsing

Neck was found,

And my breast to her beating

Breast was bound.

But my heart at the centre

Of all, in a swound

Was still as a pivot,

As all the ground

On its prowling orbit

Shifted round.

And still in my nostrils

The scent of her flesh,

And still my wet mouth

Sought her afresh;

And still one pulse

Through the world did thresh.

And the world all whirling

Around in joy

Like the dance of a dervish [p. iv]

Did destroy

My sense—and my reason

Spun like a toy.

But firm at the centre

My heart was found;

Her own to my perfect

Heart-beat bound,

Like a magnet’s keeper

Closing the round.

CRUELTY AND LOVE [p. v]

What large, dark hands are those at the window

Lifted, grasping the golden light

Which weaves its way through the creeper leaves

To my heart’s delight?

Ah, only the leaves! But in the west,

In the west I see a redness come

Over the evening’s burning breast—

—’Tis the wound of love goes home!

The woodbine creeps abroad

Calling low to her lover:

The sun-lit flirt who all the day

Has poised above her lips in play

And stolen kisses, shallow and gay

Of pollen, now has gone away

—She woos the moth with her sweet, low word,

And when above her his broad wings hover

Then her bright breast she will uncover

And yield her honey-drop to her lover.

Into the yellow, evening glow

Saunters a man from the farm below,

Leans, and looks in at the low-built shed

Where hangs the swallow’s marriage bed.

The bird lies warm against the wall.

She glances quick her startled eyes

Towards him, then she turns away

Her small head, making warm display

Of red upon the throat. His terrors sway

Her out of the nest’s warm, busy ball, [p. vi]

Whose plaintive cry is heard as she flies

In one blue stoop from out the sties

Into the evening’s empty hall.

Oh, water-hen, beside the rushes

Hide your quaint, unfading blushes,

Still your quick tail, and lie as dead,

Till the distance folds over his ominous tread.

The rabbit presses back her ears,

Turns back her liquid, anguished eyes

And crouches low: then with wild spring

Spurts from the terror of his oncoming

To be choked back, the wire ring

Her frantic effort throttling:

Piteous brown ball of quivering fears!

Ah soon in his large, hard hands she dies,

And swings all loose to the swing of his walk.

Yet calm and kindly are his eyes

And ready to open in brown surprise

Should I not answer to his talk

Or should he my tears surmise.

I hear his hand on the latch, and rise from my chair

Watching the door open: he flashes bare

His strong teeth in a smile, and flashes his eyes

In a smile like triumph upon me; then careless-wise

He flings the rabbit soft on the table board

And comes towards me: ah, the uplifted sword

Of his hand against my bosom, and oh, the broad [p. vii]

Blade of his hand that raise my face to applaud

His coming: he raises up my face to him

And caresses my mouth with his fingers, which still smell grim

Of the rabbit’s fur! God, I am caught in a snare!

I know not what fine wire is round my throat,

I only know I let him finger there

My pulse of life, letting him nose like a stoat

Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood:

And down his mouth comes to my mouth, and down

His dark bright eyes descend like a fiery hood

Upon my mind: his mouth meets mine, and a flood

Of sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drown

Within him, die, and find death good.

CHERRY ROBBERS [p. viii]

Under the long, dark boughs, like jewels red

In the hair of an Eastern girl

Shine strings of crimson cherries, as if had bled

Blood-drops beneath each curl.

Under the glistening cherries, with folded wings

Three dead birds lie:

Pale-breasted throstles and a blackbird, robberlings

Stained with red dye.

Under the haystack a girl stands laughing at me,

With cherries hung round her ears—

Offering me her scarlet fruit: I will see

If she has any tears.

LILIES IN THE FIRE [p. ix]

I

Ah, you stack of white lilies, all white and gold,

I am adrift as a sunbeam, and without form

Or having, save I light on you to warm

Your pallor into radiance, flush your cold

White beauty into incandescence: you

Are not a stack of white lilies to-night, but a white

And clustered star transfigured by me to-night,

And lighting these ruddy leaves like a star dropped through

The slender bare arms of the branches, your tire-maidens

Who lift swart arms to fend me off; but I come

Like a wind of fire upon you, like to some

Stray whitebeam who on you his fire unladens.

And you are a glistening toadstool shining here

Among the crumpled beech-leaves phosphorescent,

My stack of white lilies burning incandescent

Of me, a soft white star among the leaves, my dear.

II

Is it with pain, my dear, that you shudder so?

Is it because I have hurt you with pain, my dear?

Did I shiver?—Nay, truly I did not know—

A dewdrop may-be splashed on my face down here.

Why even now you speak through close-shut teeth.

I have been too much for you—Ah, I remember!

The ground is a little chilly underneath [p. x]

The leaves—and, dear, you consume me all to an ember.

You hold yourself all hard as if my kisses

Hurt as I gave them—you put me away—

Ah never I put you away: yet each kiss hisses

Hot as a drop of fire wastes me away.

III

I am ashamed, you wanted me not to-night—

Nay, it is always so, you sigh with me.

Your radiance dims when I draw too near, and my free

Fire enters your petals like death, you wilt dead white.

Ah, I do know, and I am deep ashamed;

You love me while I hover tenderly

Like clinging sunbeams kissing you: but see

When I close in fire upon you, and you are flamed

With the swiftest fire of my love, you are destroyed.

’Tis a degradation deep to me, that my best

Soul’s whitest lightning which should bright attest

God stepping down to earth in one white stride,

Means only to you a clogged, numb burden of flesh

Heavy to bear, even heavy to uprear

Again from earth, like lilies wilted and sere

Flagged on the floor, that before stood up so fresh.

COLDNESS IN LOVE [p. xi]

And you remember, in the afternoon

The sea and the sky went grey, as if there had sunk

A flocculent dust on the floor of the world: the festoon

Of the sky sagged dusty as spider cloth,

And coldness clogged the sea, till it ceased to croon.

A dank, sickening scent came up from the grime

Of weed that blackened the shore, so that I recoiled

Feeling the raw cold dun me: and all the time

You leapt about on the slippery rocks, and threw

The words that rang with a brassy, shallow chime.

And all day long that raw and ancient cold

Deadened me through, till the grey downs darkened to sleep.

Then I longed for you with your mantle of love to fold

Me over, and drive from out of my body the deep

Cold that had sunk to my soul, and there kept hold.

But still to me all evening long you were cold,

And I was numb with a bitter, deathly ache;

Till old days drew me back into their fold,

And dim sheep crowded me warm with companionship,

And old ghosts clustered me close, and sleep was cajoled.

I slept till dawn at the window blew in like dust,

Like the linty, raw-cold dust disturbed from the floor

Of a disused room: a grey pale light like must

That settled upon my face and hands till it seemed

To flourish there, as pale mould blooms on a crust.

Then I rose in fear, needing you fearfully, [p. xii]

For I thought you were warm as a sudden jet of blood.

I thought I could plunge in your spurting hotness, and be

Clean of the cold and the must.—With my hand on the latch

I heard you in your sleep speak strangely to me.

And I dared not enter, feeling suddenly dismayed.

So I went and washed my deadened flesh in the sea

And came back tingling clean, but worn and frayed

With cold, like the shell of the moon: and strange it seems

That my love has dawned in rose again, like the love of a maid.

END OF ANOTHER HOME-HOLIDAY [p. xiii]

I

When shall I see the half moon sink again

Behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden?

When will the scent of the dim, white phlox

Creep up the wall to me, and in at my open window?

Why is it, the long slow stroke of the midnight bell,

(Will it never finish the twelve?)

Falls again and again on my heart with a heavy reproach?

The moon-mist is over the village, out of the mist speaks the bell,

And all the little roofs of the village bow low, pitiful, beseeching, resigned:

Oh, little home, what is it I have not done well?

Ah home, suddenly I love you,

As I hear the sharp clean trot of a pony down the road,

Succeeding sharp little sounds dropping into the silence,

Clear upon the long-drawn hoarseness of a train across the valley.

The light has gone out from under my mother’s door.

That she should love me so,

She, so lonely, greying now,

And I leaving her,

Bent on my pursuits!

Love is the great Asker,

The sun and the rain do not ask the secret

Of the time when the grain struggles down in the dark. [p. xiv]

The moon walks her lonely way without anguish,

Because no loved one grieves over her departure.

II

Forever, ever by my shoulder pitiful Love will linger,

Crouching as little houses crouch under the mist when I turn.

Forever, out of the mist the church lifts up her reproachful finger,

Pointing my eyes in wretched defiance where love hides her face to mourn.

Oh but the rain creeps down to wet the grain

That struggles alone in the dark,

And asking nothing, cheerfully steals back again!

The moon sets forth o’ nights

To walk the lonely, dusky heights

Serenely, with steps unswerving;

Pursued by no sigh of bereavement,

No tears of love unnerving